PERIMETER EXPANDS INTO
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
By Tim Linden
14 | Winter 2021/22
late 1990s, marketing American Broadcasting Company’s
San Francisco affiliate’s sports programming
packages to the grocery business.
Britt was the director of fresh at Impact, managing
the NorCal Fresh Team and working nationally
with all 30 of Impact’s office, focusing on proliferating
their fresh departments. The company was
then purchased by Acosta this summer. Britt left in
the fall to handle some business on the family farm
in Modesto.
Martin said Britt’s availability, as well as the necessary
realignments that typically take place when
one food broker acquires another, led to the development
of this new business opportunity. “Our business
model is very customer centric,” he said. “You have
to have the right people to expand and in Bruce we
have that.”
The two brokers have not worked together before,
but they have been players in the same sector of the
produce industry and have crossed paths many times
at industry events. “My desire to make this move was
based on Brad’s integrity. I felt I needed to work with
someone that I knew had the same level of character
and integrity that I possess,” Britt said. “Produce is a
24-hour business. You have to look at your customers
and clients as partners, working together to ensure
strategies are working and execution is creating positive
results.”
He added: “Today the environment in the industry
has changed, as has the world, and so we must
continue to show our value to maintain our leading
role. Expanding our business into Northern California
is a logical move to allow those partnerships to
expand with us.”
Martin concurred. He noted that the company
has “merchandising” in its title because it is a very
important aspect of the service Perimeter offers. He
said about 90 percent of their work is in the produce
department where they love to be involved with
merchandising and store schematics. The company
has always focused on “total customer engagement”
working with each retailer and client to create a successful
partnership.
The Southern California division of Perimeter
basically handles stores from Santa Maria and Fresno
south to the Mexican border and includes Las Vegas’
Clark County. The Northern Division handles stores
from the Oregon border down to where it meets the
Southern Division’s northern border, and also handles
Reno/Tahoe and the Carson City area.
After exclusively serving the Southern California
region since its inception 26 years ago,
Perimeter Sales & Merchandising has opened
an office in Northern California and now services
the entire state as well as the marketing areas
surrounding Las Vegas and Reno in Nevada.
Brad Martin, president of the company, told Fresh
Digest that he has had opportunities to expand in the
past, but it was never quite the right fit. “To expand
you have to have the right person and now we do in
Bruce Britt,” he said.
Martin noted that the purchase of one large food
broker company by another created opportunities that
he and veteran Northern California food broker Britt
began to explore. “We opened the new division on
December 1 with Bruce running that division. This is
allowing us now to work with some of our existing
lines, most notably Fresh Gourmet, throughout the
state.”
Martin said Perimeter has nearly 40 clients and
17 employees in Southern California. “Our goal is to
duplicate that level of support in Northern California.”
Britt brings a long resume and a wealth of experience
to his new position as president of the Northern
California Division of Perimeter Sales & Merchandising.
He revealed that he grew up in Cheboygan,
MI, where he was quite the entrepreneur selling
newspapers, shining shoes and polishing golf clubs
at the local country club before he was even a teen.
In 1977, the family moved to California when
Bruce’s father was transferred to Proctor & Gamble’s
Modesto facility. Bruce Britt began his working life
on the retail end of the business in 1978 and stayed
on that side of the fence until joining the food broker,
Bradshaw Company, as a territory manager in perishables
in 1985.
He has spent most of his career as a Northern
California food broker with the aforementioned Bradshaw,
Acosta, Interlink Marketing Group and Impact
Group. He also spent several years, starting in the